Make sure you pay your respects to the funniest film of 2017, as Monty Python meets TV's The Thick of It in this outrageous and brilliant historical satirical farce.

Written and directed by the wickedly talented Armando Iannucci, it's a fiercely sharp attack on the self-serving scheming and idiocy of the ruling classes.

With UK and US politics being what they are, it's telling the script writers had to go back to the genocidal purges of Stalinist Russia to find politicians more evil, grasping, stupid and incompetent.

Iannucci's sets his sights on his usual targets of bureaucracy, idiocy, cowardice and toadying. He sadistically mocks the ridiculous pomp of state occasions and the craven minions who hope to succeed or just survive by second guessing their masters.

(Image: Entertainment One UK/Youtube)

(Image: Entertainment One UK/Youtube)

(Image: Entertainment One UK/Youtube)

In 1953 the Soviet hierarchy are in panic as Stalin lies dying. To a man they are rapists, murderers and thieves and put their interests far ahead of those of the people.

As his weak willed deputy assumes control, a power struggle erupts between the chief of security and the head of the Communist Party in Moscow.

Simon Russell Beale and Steve Buscemi are on inspired form as Beria and Khrushchev and keep the rest of the cast on their toes.

Ex-Python Michael Palin hasn't had a role this good since A Fish Called Wanda, though the script offers choice scenes to every member of the impressive cast.

Andrea Riseborough and Rupert Friend are deranged, spoilt and drunk as Stalin's adult offspring. The Fast Show's Paul Whitehouse sidles about offering a snide commentary and best of the lot, Jason Isaacs plays the head of the Red Army as a northern hardman.

(Image: Entertainment One UK/Youtube)

(Image: Entertainment One UK/Youtube)

(Image: Entertainment One UK/Youtube)

Playing the Russians in an array of English and US accents helps differentiate the characters and emphasises the class divisions in Russian society. Buscemi's US voice gives Kruschev more than a hint of Hollywood gangster.

While not quite epic in scope, excellent location work give the film a suitably grand gloss. Timely, hilarious and all too believable, The Death of Stalin proves the death of satire has been greatly exaggerated.